享有衍生(forking)的自由可说是开放源代码软件的基本权利,但在甲骨文打算收购Sun/MySQL之前,没有太多人知道保留这种程序代码分支权利的重要性.
毕竟,只要你不是首要版权人,则你永远只能排老二,在软件也只有第二等的商业化机会. (全文...)
文章关键字 ‘GPL’
厂商最爱GPL授权 GPL不能保证软件自由
2009年10月23日，星期五GNU GPL在法国胜诉
2009年09月25日，星期五22日巴黎上诉法院裁决EDU4公司违反了GNU GPL协议，在分发软件时只提供了二进制文件，而拒绝提供源代码。
这个诉讼是法国的一个教育组织AFPA提出的。在2000年，AFPA从 Edu4那里购买了新的课堂使用的计算机设备。不久，AFPA发现随设备分发的一个使用GPL协议的VNC软件。但是经过多次交涉，Edu4拒绝提供这个 版本VNC的源代码，同时Edu4在被发现后，还删除了软件中的版权与许可声明。这些行为都违反了GPL许可条款的规定。
而这个裁决的独特之处是，软件的使用者是原告，而不是版权持有人。一般认为，只有版权持有人才可以去执行许可条款中的规定，但很显然，至少在法国并不是如此。（法院的裁判书，法语）
违反GPL，微软开源驱动未能进入Linux核心
2009年07月25日，星期六
微软在GPL许可证下发布了Hyper-V的Linux驱动，令开源社区感到意外，但最终它将无法被Linux kernel接纳 (全文...)
Microsoft Submits Linux Device Drivers for Hyper-V
2009年07月21日，星期二
Microsoft has released 20,000 lines of device driver code to the Linux community that is claimed to improve the performance of the Linux operating system when virtualized on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V or Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V. The code includes three Linux device drivers, and has been submitted to the Linux kernel community for inclusion in the Linux tree. The drivers will be made available to the Linux community and customers.
The company has provided the code -- called LinuxIC -- under the GPL version 2 license. The intention is to improve interoperability between the Windows platform and open source technologies. The code has been provided by Microsoft's Open Source Technology Center (OSTC), which had been started for open source communities and companies interested in working with Microsoft, as well as a resource for Microsoft product groups interested in open source technology. According to Microsoft, the OSTC has technical expertise in Linux, UNIX and open source technologies, with connections in open source communities.
This move apparently comes as a result of feedback from Microsoft customers and open source partners who wanted to derive more value by deploying new open source software solutions on existing Microsoft platforms. This code will enable Linux to run as a virtual machine on top of Hyper-V -- Microsoft's hypervisor, an implementation of virtualization.
According to the company, without this driver code, Linux can run on top of Windows but without the same performance levels.
There seem to be multiple reasons for submitting GPL code to the Linux kernel community. Customers are increasingly consolidating servers and server resources. They are also looking to standardise on a single virtualization platform. The Linux device drivers will help customers consolidate their Linux instances on Windows servers, knowing that they will not experience a performance hit.
The OSTC has also been contributing to the PHP Engine, optimizing PHP 5.3 to perform better on Windows. There is also an ongoing participation in various Apache Software Foundation projects, improved interoperability with Axis2, provided support to the Firefox community to optimize Firefox for Windows Vista and Windows Media Player.